I’m not ashamed to say I love the movie, Barbie. Beyond the creative context and perfect cast for such a unique story, each time I watch the movie, I’m struck anew with its depth. The plot leads Stereotypical Barbie and Ryan Gosling’s Ken on quite the quest, but it isn’t until the end of the story that they realize they’d been searching for identity.
For instance, when Ken finally admits that he doesn’t know who he is without Barbie, he speaks aloud what too many of us have felt in our lives. We just don’t know ourselves. Not our True Selves.
- Some of us pay a lot of money in an attempt to discover who we are, buying into all the self-realization theories – only to discover that ‘self’ focus doesn’t get to Truth.
- Some of us read books and follow all the steps in our attempt to find self, putting our hope in ‘proven’ plans – only to find out it’s just not that simple.
- Some of us have nearly given up trying to know who we are at our core – maybe it feels too late or too hard or just not worth it.
The truth is…we will only really know ourselves when we get to know our Creator. Only He knows who we are, who He created us to be. And no matter what walls we’ve built, what personas we’ve put on, or what we’ve done, our Father in Heaven still sees us as He made us. He knows us as our True Selves, and He longs for us to claim identities that can only be found in Christ:
“For we are God’s masterpiece. He has created us anew in Christ Jesus.”
Ephesians 2:10a NLT
The Potter
Artists know well the path of creating in the physical what is already known in the heart.
“The sculpture is already complete within the marble block before I start my work. It is already there; I just have to chisel away the superfluous material.”
Michelangelo
“I dream of painting and then I paint my dream.”
Vincent Van Gogh
In a perfected sense, in the most holy way, our Father is an artist like Michelangelo or Van Gogh – He knows what He intends to create before ever setting Hands to the potter’s wheel:
“You, Lord, are our Father.
Isaiah 64:8
We are the clay, you are the potter;
we are all the work of your hand.”
He creates us as He intended – our True Selves.
Yet when we look in the mirror, we don’t see perfection. When we allow ourselves to search our hearts, we don’t feel holy. We see the flaws. We feel the effects of our wounds and shame and regret. And we wonder if God got it wrong.
Here’s what we have to remember in those moments – God does not make mistakes. Everything we’ve learned about Him tells us that He cannot do anything outside of good and holy and righteous.
So. Where’s the breakdown? How have we become broken pots when God created us whole…and holy?
The simplest answer lies in Genesis Three when sin entered the world. The moment Adam and Eve chose to doubt God, our lives and this planet were fractured. Our earth shakes with every disease and disaster, cracking our jugs more with every quake. Our own choices to go against God weaken us, causing fissures to spread. People harm us, breaking us further. And our enemy comes against us with lies, insinuations, and accusations, attempting to shatter us to pieces.
Just as we can see God’s Original Intent playing out in the early verses of Genesis – a world full of life and wholeness, an unbroken relationship between God and His Image Bearers – our own lives have an original intent. But it can break apart with each imperfect blow.
Yet with God there’s always good news, always hope. We are made from dirt, created with clay. So, with God as our potter, our broken vessels can be repaired, remade! This is the image God gave the prophet Jeremiah:
“So I went to the potter’s house, and sure enough, the potter was there, working away at his wheel. Whenever the pot the potter was working on turned out badly, as sometimes happens when you are working with clay, the potter would simply start over and use the same clay to make another pot. Then God’s Message came to me: ‘Can’t I do just as this potter does, people of Israel?’ God’s Decree! ‘Watch this potter. In the same way that this potter works his clay, I work on you.’”
Jeremiah 18:1-6 MSG
Friends, the Potter has a plan. And no matter what happens to the original vessel we were born into, God’s holy hand can reshape us. He can restore each of us to the clay pot He intended – and it’s not as a jar to be set upon a shelf as a decoration! No, we are vessels to be filled by God, to be used for His purposes. We are masterpieces – not to be hung in a museum but to “do the good things he planned for us long ago” (Ephesians 2:10b).
The Pot
Emily Dickinson once wrote in a letter a quite humorous sentence describing how lost she felt after a move. She had taken inventory of her hat, coat, best shoes – and her senses. Though they’d all been lost, she still searched:
“I’m out with lanterns, looking for myself.”1
When I sit with the imagery of that one line, my giggles cease. I pause at the brilliance of such a description – because this is what we do. When we feel that we’ve lost ourselves, whether to another person (like Ken) or to a career or grief, we go looking for ourselves. In the dark. With a lantern.
Friends, we can spend an exorbitant amount of energy in our search for self and never find her – because we’re looking in the wrong places. And with the wrong light.
Too often, we look for identity on the self-help aisle of bookstores. We grab hold of theories about self-actualization rather than the “realization of Christ-in-you.”2 We attempt to “scratch out a self identity in this world” that looks like gain or glamour, power or prestige, accolades or accomplishments.2 We convince ourselves that we’ll feel more like ourselves when we’re with the right person or birth the right kids or achieve the right position.
And none of that actually leads us to our True Selves.
Too often we turn our lanterns on while we’re wandering the same old lanes – streets dim with despair, alleys dark with hidden secrets and shame. Other times we grasp for someone else’s light, hoping that time in their circle of shininess might help illuminate ourselves. Sometimes we get to what seems like the end of the road, and we extinguish the flame.
The truth is that when we look to Jesus, the right Place, we discover the right Light. When we step into the sphere of His holy glow, we can see our lives clearly. We discover that all we “once held dear as the substance of our identities (aka: our false selves) must be dismantled and discarded.”2 Only God’s grace can give us our true sense of self. Every other way leaves us stuck in our false facades, enslaved to keeping up appearances, exhausted by our attempts to keep holding everything together.2
It’s by God’s grace that we can “die to self-deception and moral self-assuredness; we die to self-reliance…and self-trust.”3
Just as Moses found the core of who he was as he stood before the burning bush, the unnamed woman at the well woke up to her true identity as she looked upon Jesus. Everything that had broken her vessel of clay came to light that day, and she came away from her own burning bush moment made whole.4
All that she had believed about herself fell away as the light of Christ brought a new dawning on her reality. A woman who had given up on ever living with her head held high, ran with joy to tell the entire town that she’d met the Messiah – a man who knew everything she had ever done (John 4:39). Instead of truth bringing her shame, it released this daughter into the freedom of knowing her Savior. And by knowing Him, she finally, truly knew herself.
The grace of Christ reveals and heals.
“For God, who said, ‘Let there be light in the darkness,’ has made this light shine in our hearts so we could know the glory of God that is seen in the face of Jesus Christ. We now have this light shining in our hearts, but we ourselves are like fragile clay jars containing this great treasure. This makes it clear that our great power is from God, not from ourselves.”
2 Corinthians 4:6-7 NLT
Christ’s good news shines bright within us – like a light in a clay pot – and we’re meant to share it with others. But, we can’t if we’re living self-absorbed. Because we’re not light makers. We are, however, beautiful light carriers. Friends, “we are redeemed pots” with identities anchored in our Savior rather than self.5 We can be the “kind of container God can use to present any and every kind of gift to His guests for their blessing” (2 Timothy 2:21 MSG)!
When we feel lost – like we need a lantern to find ourselves, as if we have no idea who we are or where we’re going (1 Peter 2:24 MSG) – we remember. We are jars of clay, made whole by the Potter so that He can fill these empty vessels with His light, His life, His love. Then we hold our heads high as we run to the city and tell everyone we meet about this Jesus.
This is knowing self.
Father God, when we visualize You as a potter with the clay of our lives spinning on your wheel, we marvel at the way your hands shape us – how You take our broken vessels and remake us, how You repair our cracked pots by filling in the holes and smoothing out the rough edges. How You are careful to create within us space to carry your light and life and love into the world. We desire to be your holy vessels, so we lay down all fear and pride and self-determination, and we surrender ourselves to the Potter’s hands. Lord Jesus, we are so grateful for that conversation You so intentionally sought out at Jacob’s well that hot day. Our hearts expand as we begin to see ourselves as the woman at the well – because we hear the love in your voice. We receive the truth of your words and relinquish all shame, all wounds, all hindrances to knowing our True Selves in You. We trust that we are safe when we step into your light. Holy Spirit, we know You dwell in us, so we ask that You would be our lanterns. Shine your non-condemning light into our shadows so that we can offer them to the Lord. Help us to remain in the light of Christ so that every moment in His presence gives us greater understanding of who He is. And as we bask in the Light, may we also know our True Selves in Him. In Jesus’ name, amen.
(Inspired by Isaiah 64:8; Jeremiah 18:1-6; 2 Corinthians 4:6-7; Psalm 91:1-2; Romans 8:1)
Resources: I love sharing with you the books, podcasts, articles, and anything else that has inspired, encouraged, or taught me. These are humble offerings with no expectations.
- 1 – Details about this Dickinson letter are on this site
- 2 – JD Walt in The Daily Text, 8/24/17
- 3 – Jen Pollock Michel book Surprised by Paradox,^ p.112
- 4 – Paige Allen, He Knows Your Name,^ p.179
- 5 – Gretchen Saffles in her Bible study, Redefined: A Bible Study on Identity in Christ, p.93
- On our Hidden Identities playlist, Hillsong’s song, “Who You Say I Am,” has an incredible bridge: “I am chosen, not forsaken. I am who You say I am. You are for me, not against me. I am who You say I am.” Words from the Potter’s mouth about us. We are who He says we are! And, of course, there’s Pat Barrett’s song, “Canvas and Clay” — I needn’t say more. XOXO
- What would YOU like to read about in our next issue of The Abiding Life newsletter? Reply in the comments below or email me directly. Be sure to subscribe here if you’d like to receive future issues.
Rhythms: As my newsletter’s title infers, we seek to develop an abiding life in this space — a place where we can get informed but also be transformed as we learn to abide in God’s presence throughout our days. I like to think that developing rhythms is one way to aid us in our desire to become more Christlike.
- As we lean into the process of learning more about ourselves — our true identities in Christ — we are going to step into the spiritual practice of REST. A dear friend from The Devoted Collective, Em Tyler, wrote an article for a New Zealand magazine about rest. This is her opener:
“Imagine music with no rests. Continuous noise. Think elevator music on repeat—but even worse than that—no rests even within the music itself. Unceasing, constant sound. No pauses, no sustaining of notes, no breathing space. Music created with no rests would be hard on the ears, generate anxiety in the heart, and leave the listener overwhelmed and wanting to switch off and step away from the ‘music’ altogether.”
She carries this comparison of music to our lives, saying, “We hurry from one thing to the next, filling our time pleasing people, preparing projects, persistently performing, perfecting, and pressured.” Into this way of living, Jesus says:
“Come to me, all you who are weary and burdened and I will give you rest.” (Matthew 11:28)
Em goes on to say, “Jesus sees us juggling and struggling and knows there is one thing needed and He calls it: time-out. The Greek for ‘rest’ here is anapauo. ‘Ana’—again, back; ‘pauo’ – to cease/stop or give rest. Jesus wants us to cease again. To stop again. To rest again. So that he can refresh us again. Just like rests in music don’t only come at the end of a piece but throughout, Jesus wants us to learn to come to him and experience this repetitive resting that we all need. Rest again.”
This week, let’s look where we might put rests into the rhythms of our lives so that we can be refreshed — remade, restored. Made whole and holy in our Father’s hands.
- And while it’s not a spiritual practice or rhythm, I invite you to share this site. This is such an important topic that I want as many people as possible to join us here. Together we’ll find support and encouragement and the simple truth that we are not alone in our struggles.
Featured Image, “Lightbulb Jesus,” by @gettyimages on Canva.
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